I perceive that I am not setting down my true opinion of Mme. Mairieux. She showed on every occasion that power of adaption to circumstances which is characteristic of happy natures. When the time arrived to leave Compiègne, where she enjoyed herself, I know that she did not protest, and physical ills she always faced with courage. Without doubt she loved, and still loves, glittering, stirring, noisy things; many women have the same taste. She is perfectly good and loyal. If she has never suspected the martyrdom which exhausted and then slowly killed her daughter, I cannot forget that even this lack of comprehension has perhaps helped to save me from despair by making me doubt the extent of my culpability. For her I have remained a sort of god, to whom everything is permitted, who has the right to be an unscrupulous egotist, for no other reason than because he is. Although she sometimes bores me with her trivial worldliness, which was strong enough to survive Raymonde’s death, and which will last as long as she herself does, now that I know her thoroughly, her affection touches me. My marriage only flattered her maternal pride. She has retained this somewhat childish feeling, and I cannot bear her a grudge for it.
As for M. Mairieux, although our mutual sorrow has not brought us closer together—for he has divined its cause—what can I write here that will be worthy of my respect for him? His sensitive pride, which at that time prevented his accepting my invitations to the chateau and later caused him to reject, with a certain excess of resolution, offers from a son-in-law whose highest wish was to be taken for a son; the uprightness and nobility of his character, even the courtesy which enabled him to maintain unaffectedly the proper distance between us, should have enlightened me as to his ancient lineage and the superiority of his nature; matters to which, at that time, my thoughtlessness attached no importance. The firmness underlying his kindliness, the adoration which he bestowed upon his daughter and afterwards extended to Dilette; his generosity, which permitted him to appear to attribute my ill-omened work to the fates rather than to myself, by virtue perhaps, of the unfortunate lesson he had received in his own life of the differences of taste and feelings;—all that I venerate in him brings me closer to the memory of my dear Raymonde.
* * *
Little by little, during our rides together, I saw Raymonde’s shyness and reticence melt, like the mist which rises from the earth when the dew evaporates in the light of a beautiful morning.
The first time I heard her laugh I stopped in surprise. It sounded so crystalline, so pure, so aerial, that no note of music in my memory could suggest an equivalent. She was greatly amused by my ignorance. I did not know how to distinguish an ash tree from a beech, an aspen from an elm, or a hornbeam from a sycamore. At first I was not a very apt pupil. The usefulness of this forest-lore did not impress me. I permitted myself to be instructed as a pastime, but she brought much patience to the work, for she believed in it. What do we learn at college, that we should be ignorant of such elementary things? If I had asked of her, as I asked the children about their songs, who had taught them to her, she would doubtless have answered as they did:
“No one.”
The forest, of which she was the little queen, revealed to me all its rites and mysteries; not only those which one sees from horseback in the alleys, but those also which belong to the depths of its life and which one must seek on foot, gently, under its arched trees, as one studies the aisles of a church and the ornaments of the chapels.
“A tree, like a human being, grows refined in society,” M. Mairieux explained to me. “When it stands alone we see its trunk short, stumpy and gnarled, its roots cramped in the soil, its foliage growing close to the ground and its summit bare, as if it had rolled itself up to resist the wind; but in the company of others it reveals a smooth, round shaft, bare of branches until far up, while at the top they form a thick and symmetrical group. But this elegance, this dash, this grace, I was about to say this politeness, does not preclude the competition which is the law of nature. A grove of beautiful trees rises toward the sun, each wishes to receive from on high the light of day, and the conquered ones, broken and suffocated, degenerate and soon perish. The law of selection is at work here as everywhere, for the benefit of the strong who overthrow the weak and attain to a free and higher expansion.”
Raymonde admired the victors, but disapproved of their pride.
“I believe,” she said, “that if I were changed into a tree, I should be a species of shadow.”